Tuesday 9th November - Doge

Doge-Richard-Building
Originally uploaded by coljen.

The first tuesday games evening for a couple of weeks and the selection is Doge. A game of political shannigans in Venice. Neil and I had not played before, Steve had, not sure about Richard. Steve gave a run through the rules while Richard tried to build the Empire State Building out of his palaces. As usual here is a quick description from BGG.

Three or four players try to gain the most influence by building palazzos in Venice. Influence is placed face-down into city sections. When all is placed, they are revealed in a predetermined order. Having the most influence in a section allows a player to build the most houses and also give control over the advisor for that section. The advisor can be placed somewhere else in the city and adds influence in a later vote. Houses can be traded for Palazzos, and the player with a Palazzo in every section wins the game.

As I said before we started, Richard didn’t pay any attention at all to the rules so he obviously was going to win. This game from 2000, designed by Leo Colovini, is a nice blend of strataties. Do you take the advisor? Or do you neutralise him and move houses around? If you have the most influence in the province of course. The game flowed fairly well with everyone having a clear idea of what they were doing (Even Richard), I was just winging it :)